Experiment Gives Appliances Human Personalities

This week, our tech slideshow is all about the Mobile World Congress, the consumer electronics show that takes place in Barcelona each year. Innovative smartphones, wearable computers and Internet-connected cars are among some of the technologies that were on display. Here are some of our favorites.
The Mirama smart glasses, from Japan-based Brilliant Service , have a gesture recognition system combined with augmented reality technology.
The wearer uses her hands to interact with virtual objects seen in the glasses. Brilliant service wants their smart glasses to one day replace for smartphones.

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For its unique aluminum unibody design, the HTC ONE was awarded this year's "Smartphone of the Year."

Xinhua/Xie Haining

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Walldorf, Germany-based SAP is working with the German national football team to prepare for the World Cup in 2014, and take soccer to the next level. The ball has embedded sensors and electronics that capture and analyze a wealth of data in real time, including spatial analysis of player movements.

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Blackphone is the world's first smartphone that places security back into the hands of the user. The $629 phone, which comes unlocked, was developed in a partnership between Silent Circle and Geeksphone. Along with the PrivatOS, built on Android, the phone comes with a suite of Silent Circle apps, including Silent Phone, Silent Text and Silent Contacts; anonymous search, private browsing and VPN from Disconnect. SpiderOak provides a secure cloud file storage and the Blackphone ships with a remote-wipe and device recovery tool.

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LG was on hand to promote its new G Flex, which has a 6.0” curved OLED screen, that while not flexible, does have a shape that fits well into the palm of a hand. The big screen provides an impressive panoramic view, while minimizing glare.

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Samsung's Galaxy Fit was among many wearable fitness devices on display at the Mobile World Congress. The Fit has a thin, curved shape meant to follow the wrist; the user navigates menus by swiping horizontally. Along with a heart monitor, the Fit is designed to provide notifications for calls, e-mail and text message. A personal fitness coaching app is an option.

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One of the most surprising announcements at the Mobile World Congress came from Mozilla, who plans to launch seven new devices using Firefox OS, including a smartphone -- the ZTE Open C -- priced at $25. The devices are being aimed at people in developing countries.

Mozilla

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Chinese company Gionee presented its Elife 5.5, the world's thinnest smartphone. At 5.5 millimeters thick, the phone edges out the 5.75mm Vivo X3. For comparison, the iPhone 5s is 7.6mm thick.

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The new Xperia Z2 phone and tablet from Sony are waterproof, come with brighter screens and noise-canceling earbuds.

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Sony's SmartBand SWR10 is also waterproof, which makes sense if you plan to sweat while wearing them.

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Practically speaking, cars are becoming gadgets. Ford was among several automakers displaying their versions of fully connected Internet cars. These cars work in conjunction with a person's smartphone or work like a smartphone to run apps that connect to the Internet, play music and movies, display GPS navigation and control security features at home, among many other features.

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“Smart” appliances could one day become more like humans, like a needy toaster that tweets its feelings and colludes with the refrigerator. This isn’t a family movie plot but a real experiment.

Interaction designer Simone Rebaudengo works for Frog in Munich, where his research focuses on exploring relationships between networked objects. Last year his “Addicted Products” project in collaboration with in collaboration with Haque Design Research in London unleashed networks of self-possessed toasters on human “hosts.”

In Rebaudengo‘s experiment, toasters were programmed to want to toast. In a sense they behaved like addicts — tweeting out joy when they got bread, becoming passive-aggressive when other toasters received more attention, and getting the refrigerator to tell the humans to buy new loaves. Unhappy toasters could even attempt suicide.

“Though it’s unlikely that many people would actually want a toaster that acts quite like this, several aspects of the design could easily be incorporated into actual product-sharing systems,” Adele Peters wrote on FastCo.Exist. Rebaudengo’s toaster network is on pause at the moment but the concept recently won best in show for the 2014 Interaction Awards.

Even though I’ve encountered toasters that were tetchy without any personality programming, we could benefit from devices that periodically remind us when they’ve gone unused. Having moved recently, I wish my old cell phone had texted to say “Hey, why not erase my contents and donate me?” If smart appliances can nudge us into energy conservation, they should get us to recycle them wisely, too.